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Saturday, December 16, 2006

FDA relegates Ketek to second line treatment for community acquired pneumonia

The FDA seems to making some progress in the Ketek matter.Maybe now we will be seeing less of the ubiquitous Ketex advertising owl on the back of medical journals.

I have been concerned with the Ketek issue for some time and have blogged on and on about it on several occasions.I expressed the opinion that there was little if any indication for that drug.It had been approved and marketed for sinusitis,bronchitis and community acquired pneumonia (CAP).Now the FDA panel says use it only as a second line drug for CAP.At least they are heading in the right direction. The risk of liver disease seems real (I believe at least 12 fatal cases so far) and why anyone would use it to treat sinusitis escapes me.

ADDENDUM:(12/19/06) Thanks to an alert reader I was informed I had misspelled the brand name of the drug in question when this message was first published.Since one who controls the present controls the past I am now going to at least partially control the past and republish the corrected posting with the explanatory addendum. James Gaulte